The Century Quilt

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The incessant ticking of the clock’s minute hand reminds humans that their construction of time does not and will not stop. This is not necessarily a negative realization however, because the continuous passing of time can be held accountable for a multitude of events that subsequently lead to paradigm shifts and progress throughout the world, within nations, and among small circles of people. In her poem, The Century Quilt, Marilyn Nelson Waniek employs literary techniques to explain and to explore this concept of the passage of time and its effect on individuals through the symbolic aspects of a simple quilt. Waniek begins the poem by talking about a completely different blanket, “Meema’s Indian blanket,” that is separate from The Century …show more content…
The speaker looks back on her childish outlook on life when she was younger, pretending to be “chieftains/ and princesses,” looking at the world with nothing but wonder and awe, but only working towards a single small goal of inheriting the beautiful blanket. The poetic shift that occurs at line 13 moves the poem from a nostalgic memory of want for a beautiful blanket, to an understanding and realization that the simple patched quilt has much more to offer. The speaker states, “I’ve found a quilt/ I’d like to die under,” implying that she has found much more value in multiple aspects of her quilt. For example, the author’s imagery of the “six Van Dyke brown squares,/ two white ones, and one square/ the yellowbrown of Mama’s cheeks”

Marilyn Waniek's The Century Quilt

It is more than a quilt and it is more than a fabric to the cheery speaker. Marilyn Waniek reveals the passion of a young child to pass down a family emblem, in the poem she wrote, “ The Century Quilt.” Waniek diligently uses various literary techniques such as, attitude, shifts, and connotation to develop complex meanings that the speaker gives to the poem. As the poem unfolds the speaker is carefully being characterized by what Waniek writes as her pen meets the blank paper. She creates a mood…

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